Star Trek – A Science Fiction Voyage

Star Trek first hit people’s television screens in 1966. The brave courageous earth-crewed Starship Enterprise went off to explore the galaxy and to boldly go where no man had been before.

For people watching in the 1960s, it must have been totally out of left field. Humans going into space in a ship that could go to warp speed. Who could have dreamed that up? Let’s put that into into perspective, shall we? The first human in space was Yuri Gagarin in 1961, five years before the writers came up with the concept for this story.

It began as a television show, and there are some pretty crazy ‘inventions’ that humans have made in the shows and early movies. Tasers, for example, seem to be inspired by the phazers in Star Trek. The weapons can be set to stun or kill, but tasers are supposed to only stun, though deaths have occurred as a direct result of their use. But back to the subject matter… the evolution of Star Trek. When the first series was aired, the only alien fans really knew, was Doctor Spock, a half Vulcan, half human philosopher, who advised captain James T. Kirk on the intricacies of inter galactic diplomacy and alien customs.

Fast forward through the franchise and you will see just how much the Star Trek Universe expanded. By the time the movies were made, there were Romulans and Klingons who were at war, and Earth was slap bang in the middle trying to mediate in a fragile peace between the two ‘nations’.

Star Trek became bigger and bigger and as usual, fan fiction and novels exploded. We were treated to the spin offs of the Next Generation and Captain Picard, Deep Space 9 and of course Voyager, an earth ship that got lost in the Cosmos and tried to make its way home – a futuristic Gulliver’s Travels, so to speak. Now, of course, we have prequel movies that are still in production and soon to be released.